Page 62 of The Love of Our Lives
‘All right,’ he says, and takes a seat across the table.
We drink our coffee in the comfortable silence we’ve always had – just two hungover friends up early, but content with the other’s company.
Our eyes meet and I feel he’s about to say something, when footsteps sound from somewhere. We both look around sharply to see a very dishevelled Sven walking towards the table in his boxers and a stained Scandi Pizza Man hoodie.
‘Morning,’ we both manage to grunt.
‘I feel like wild animals attacked me,’ Sven says, ‘and then I got run over by a truck.’
I can’t help laughing, even if I feel a little sheepish. ‘I’m sorry, that was my fault. I got a bit carried away.’
‘No shit,’ Sven says, heading to get two mugs from the cupboard. Bringing them over to the table he takes a seat. ‘Ah, it was all good fun. Nothing a little ski won’t fix, once Charlie’s up.’
‘Charlie’s not going skiing, is she?’ I say, a trace of worry kicking in.
‘No, no,’ Sven says, pouring himself and Charlie a cup, ‘she’ll just hang out at the bottom of the slopes. I feel sort of bad leaving her but remember what you kept saying last night?’
I frown, my memory of it all blurring somewhat. ‘What did I keep saying?’
‘YOLO,’ Sven and Adam say at the same time.
You Only Live Once.
I feel myself cringing. ‘God, sorryagain.’
‘Don’t be,’ Sven says, taking the cups back to the bedroom now, ‘it’s all good. We’ll catch you guys back here for dinner later, OK?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Adam says, and meets my eyes across the table again.
It dawns on me in this moment that I’ll be spending a whole day with Adam, out in the mountains. And I don’t know if it’s the caffeine flooding through my system or knowing I get to be close for him for all that time, but my stomach does the greatest backflip – twice.
It’s a clear day up on the slopes and I can feel the pain in my head starting to ease off with the freshness of it all, plus about a gallon of water. The snow is light and powdery-looking under the chairlift we’re on, which Adam insists is a rarity in Scotland – it’s usually sheet ice and rock, apparently, and he saw it all in his childhood – skiing in Japan, snowboarding in the Canadian Rockies. But as I lower myself off the lift at the top, I feel apleasing bounce beneath my skis, totally different from what I experienced at the dry slopes back in Edinburgh.
It all looks quite different to the trips I’ve organised in the Alps, none of the outrageous peaks or huge stretches of woodland. It’s a vast range of glittering white, vulnerable and exposed to the elements. But there’s something so glorious about the way the slopes meet the sky like that.
There’s nowhere to hide out here.
As Adam leads me slowly down the run, a slight hitch of nerves hits my chest, and I think back to the first time I tried it a few weeks ago. It had felt pretty unnatural at first, of course, and my whole body had braced as I’d slid slowly down the synthetic hill away from the instructor. And then I was going faster and faster.
‘Shit,’ I’d said, as the toes of my skis had pointed together then crossed. My heart rate had shot up as I’d flown through the air, landing with a thump on my side. I’d started laughing because the funny thing was, it hadn’t hurt, not really. Not enough to take away from how awesome it had been, that feeling of flying.
The next time, I’d followed the instructor’s line, imitating what she’d done as best as I could. I’d managed to make the turn for a moment only, before my skies seem to run ahead of me and I was flying backwards through the air – cold ground again, skis tangled in front of me. But this time I hadn’t laughed. I’d just picked myself up and dusted myself down again.
Let’s go,I’d said.
We’d kept doing it, the instructor swooping down in front and me following behind with a new sort of determination, the type where all I could see was the bottom of that run and the only way I could get there was to move. I’d fallen a third time, a fourth, my skies either crossing in front of me or me just simply losing my nerve when I started moving too fast. But then I’d managed to make two turns in a row, then three. The final time I’d fallen, I’d looked back up at where I’d come from and suddenly I’d realisedjust how far I’d skied. After that one go, I was hooked. I returned several times with the instructor or by myself, determined to get the hang of it. It was expensive, of course, but since I knew how short Emily’s life would be, I didn’t feel bad about spending the money she’d saved anymore – no point in saving for a rainy day when the days are running short.
Ahead of me, Adam pauses now on the slope we’re on, and I pull up alongside him.
‘You were ace up there,’ he grins. ‘Did you seriously only begin a few weeks ago?’
I smile, knowing he’s only being nice – I’ll never be a pro but I’m still proud of myself for giving it a crack, for even getting to this stage.
‘You would love the summer skiing in Canada,’ he says, pauses. ‘I might do some when I go actually.’
My breath catches. ‘You’re leaving?’
‘Not forever,’ he says steadily, ‘but yeah, I’m planning on going out in May and then spending the summer there, I’ll be leaving in a month or so.’ He looks softly at me. ‘There’s nothing holding me here right now and I’ve completed a bunch of orders, which should last me for a while money-wise.’
